The Illumination of Ursula Flight

by Anna-Marie Crowhurst

  DANDYWINE: The comet! I remember it well, for I had been watching the skies, knowing it would soon burn overhead... I ran into the streets crying to all who would listen that pestilence would come upon us again, and then fire, and so they did. My old father died in the outbreak and my aunt, and my cat, and then my old shop burned down.

  ME: I am greatly sorry to hear that, sir.

  DANDYWINE: Do not be sorry, for I had seen it written in the movement of the planets, and had removed all of my flammable goods to my sister’s house. And I am certain that one of these days she will see sense and give them back.

  ME: Sir, I dearly love to watch the skies, and would talk with you longer, but I am in haste—

  DANDYWINE: Forgive me, mistress! I am but an ignorant Gemini and apt to let my mouth run away with me, as those born under the twins are wont to do.

  ME: Mrs Bunty said you would be able to help me with an... ailment.

  DANDYWINE: Ah, yes. The vagaries and the vexations of Venus. I think it is the cure for the unblocking of the – ha – humours that you want? The type that make a lady – swell? Have I got it, mistress?

  URSULA: Aye. Can you help me, sir?

  DANDYWINE: I shall make up the remedy – Dandywine’s Rule of Three! [He bustles about the phials and bottles, taking a little from each] First, a decoction of mugwort and the leaves and berries of the bay tree. You shall boil this in some cinnamon water, and then sit over it until it has cooled, mistress.

  URSULA: Sit over it?

  DANDYWINE: Aye, in a cauldron, or a pot or some such, so that the vapours may disperse up where they are needed. [In a stage whisper] TO YOUR DUCKING-POND. Next, some juice of myrrh mixed with sweet marjoram and some water pimpernel which you will need to fry in vinegar, and then – ha – put under as a – ha – pessary, do you understand me? [In a stage whisper] IN YOUR BUTTER BOX.

  URSULA: Sir, I assure you, I understand you.

  DANDYWINE: When ’tis warm, not hot or you will frazzle your – ha – quim. These two together should draw down the courses. But, if they do not, the main event, my wonder potion – pennyroyal, colewort, saxifrage, a bit of Devil’s bit... Swallow the whole of it, and then take yourself on the bumpiest carriage ride ye can muster, and that will shake the – ha – humour free. There is a monstrous bad road out to the village of Hampstead that’s full of potholes and rocks – that may do the trick.

  The very next day after my visit to the apothecary’s shop, I set about his ‘Rule of Three’. First the decoction, which I poured, steaming and pleasantly cinnamon-scented into my empty chamber pot, and, lifting up my skirts, sat myself over it. I did not notice any rumblings in my belly, though my cunny grew quite toasty in the rising heat, and my legs cramped in the squatting position. I went the whole next day in a pet that the potion would do its job at the playhouse, but I felt not so much as a stirring, and so I knew I must move to the second part of the physic. This was an altogether unpleasant thing, for the pessary was acrid and burned when (with burning cheeks – for it seemed an ungodly thing to do) I rubbed it on, and though I tried to bear it for as long as I could, and walked about humming, and chewed on my fist, and hopped on one leg, and conjugated verbs out loud all the better to bear the pain, I could not tolerate the sensation for as long as I knew I should, and was compelled to wash it all off before I set to screaming. I knew then that the third and final treatment was my only hope.

  The almanac told me Wednesday would be an auspicious day, and I, telling Parrykin that I had to go and visit my mother who was gravely sick, went abroad at an early hour to see about the hiring of a carriage, swallowing the potion, which had a strong sharp stench and burned as it went down so that I had to fight to keep it there.

  ‘Oh, sweet babe I will never know,’ I said, patting my belly. ‘Forgive me in this, for ’tis simply not your time.’

  The bitter taste of the potion was still on my lips as I twisted my body about and bent forward, and dragged my knees up to my chest and lay back against the dark cloth of the carriage, writhing in my seat, and biting at my hand, but I could get no relief from the pain, such a pain, such a fiery ache; like nothing I’d ever known.

  The coach rumbled on, bumping over the cobblestones with its rhythmic thump-thump-knock thump-thump-knock; the scraping of iron on stone as the wheels ground onto the potholes and rubble of the road; the squeak as the carriage juddered on its thoroughbraces; the drifting tang of horse sweat; and all the while I trembled and burned, lit up from the inside with what I had drunk, which, with every shake and every sway, oozed further down into my belly, on its way to the germ of the child I carried, to free it from my body.

  We had worked up to a breakneck pace, and the coach began rocking more violently – I was thrown against the sides, and against the seatback, and I fell forward – and still the poison squeezed at my womb as it blazed its way downwards, tugging the babby out of me in wave upon searing wave. I panted in and out, in and out, but the pain took hold of me in a white-hot burst, and I clawed at the carriage walls, my nails scraping lines down the leather. Against my will, for the sound rose up and keened out of my throat, though I pressed my fingers against my mouth and tried, oh I tried, to quell it, I began to cry out for the driver to halt, God save me, stop the coach, but my voice was lost in the whine of the wheels as they trundled over and over on their axes; the clanking of the wheel-shaft; the rattle of wood and metal and stone.

  Throwing back my hood I leant my head against the window frame, feeling the damp air rush in and cool my cheeks, while the colours of the street outside streamed past my eyes at speed; a long blurred strip of green and brown and black and yellow, so bright against the darkness of the carriage.

  The spasm swelled inside me then, and what was the searing stabbing of a blunted poker became the vicious thrusting of a sharpened blade, and the carriage quaked, and sweat broke out on my forehead, and the bile rose up in my chest. My hands grew cold and clammy and I gripped the window with my fingers and clashed my teeth together the better to bear it, chanting the refrain in my head that drummed in time with the thud of the horse’s hooves: I cannot have this child. I cannot have this child. I cannot have this child.

  Later, I awoke from a great sweat feeling weak and sicker than I’d ever known, and gingerly twitched the bedclothes from underneath me, squeezing my eyes open, though I feared to see the blood I knew must have pooled out of me while I dozed (the apothecary had warned me of this). But to my astonishment, and my fear, there was none, and when I pressed at my belly, I thought I felt another heartbeat pulsing there, as strong as ever it had been.

  XIII

  AMELIORATION

  In which I set about realizing my ambition

  ACT I, SCENE III

  A noble playhouse in England. Morning. A small company of actors lurk about the stage, which is strewn with props: a table set with cup and bowl; a hobby horse with a yellow mane; a glinting metal crown set with green glass.

  URSULA enters, looking pale. Though she smiles when the other actors greet her, it does not reach her eyes, and she twists her hands together, her eyes staring and unfocused.

  PARRYKIN: Ah there you are, Mrs B. How was your mother? You are looking a trifle peaky. Does something ail you?

  URSULA: Nay, I am only a little brought down, for I have had some bad news... but I will not let it affect my work, if I can help it... at least, I will try.

  PARRYKIN: Come, Mr Manners, I see you behind Mrs Careby. Let us have no horseplay today, for we have much work to do.

  THRUCKLE: Our Parry is in a pet because his new play will not come right.

  PARRYKIN: Well, what of it?

  MANNERS: He has spent above a month writing it, but he does not want anyone to know it is his play, in case it is no good, and so he writes under a pseudonym, in part because his wife told him to and he is henpecked more than any man I know.

  THRUCKLE: Clifford Montgomery Clyffe.

  URSULA: [Looking up from the floor] Not really?

 
MANNERS: Truth, sister. And he is worse than Letty for superstitions – he will not have it open on a waning moon, he will not have three of anything in it, and yesterday he kicked Bunty’s cat for crossing his path on a Wednesday.

  PARRYKIN: [Striking a tragic pose] Why, oh why, is it always actors’ sport to make fun of a writer?

  THRUCKLE: We must be wrack’d with envy, Parry.

  MANNERS: Speak for yourself, jade!

  PARRYKIN: Enough and let us get on with it. Manners, you are Ponsonby, the rake. And Sukey, you his wife Nibbs, who is being cuckolded, and Ursula, you shall play Verily, the servant girl who he’s doing the cuckolding with, but is also cuckolding him with the stable boy who is a prince in disguise but no one knows it.

  MANNERS: Fie, you have spoiled the ending, Parrykin! No point reading it now.

  PARRYKIN: Act one, scene one, I will read the stage directions. And – action!

  The company take their places.

  PONSONBY: Good evening, wife.

  NIBBS: Is it?

  PONSONBY: There is a most beautiful sunset, with a blood-red sky, and the air is sweet and perfumed with jasmine.

  NIBBS: You seem most romantical for a man who has just got back from visiting his aged mother, and read to her, and spooned curds into her slack and toothless mouth.

  PONSONBY: I am a romantic man.

  NIBBS: [Aside] Don’t I know it.

  Enter VERILY, a very pretty servant.

  VERILY: Did you want anything, mistress? Oh, master, you are returned. I see by your manner that you had a very good day.

  PONSONBY: What gave it away?

  VERILY: Your breeches are on backwards.

  NIBBS: He has been to see his mother again.

  PONSONBY: Fetch me a flagon of sack, Verily. I want to toast this beautiful wife of mine.

  VERILY: [Aside] That’s stretching it! – Gladly, sir.

  NIBBS: And I will have a dish of tea.

  Exit VERILY.

  NIBBS: You look a trifle weary, husband. Methinks you have ridden too hard.

  PONSONBY: [Aside] If only you knew. – You know how it is.

  NIBBS: Poor lady. I shall come with you next time.

  Enter VERILY, bearing a tray.

  VERILY: Here is your wine, sir.

  PONSONBY: I thank you, Verily.

  NIBBS: No need to overdo it.

  Pause.

  PARRYKIN: And that’s as far as I’ve got in that scene.

  MANNERS: I’ve just got the joke.

  CAREBY: That Parrykin sports at writing?

  MANNERS: No, I thank you, verily. No need to overdo it.

  PARRYKIN: Aye, it just came to me. But I do not know where to go now.

  MANNERS: Back to the drawing board?

  PARRYKIN: In the play, Manners.

  URSULA: Perhaps, to the garden? Perhaps the rakish husband might be seen attempting to seduce the maid. If ’tis more comedy you were wanting, perhaps he might do it very ill and...

  PARRYKIN: I beg your pardon, I thought I was the writer here.

  THRUCKLE: Mistress Bearwood works at getting herself more lines.

  URSULA: I do not! Forgive me, Parry, I simply thought it would be good for the play.

  PARRYKIN: I shall read on... let me see, where is it? Ah! Scene two. Aboard a grand sailing vessel. Her colours streaming behind her. A swashbuckling pirate by the name of Three Legs McManus...

  CAREBY: God save us!

  MANNERS: I vote we try Ursula’s way, for those seagoing adventures are no longer the mode. I fancy ’tis romancing in the parlour and cuckolding in the drawing room that captures the heart of a merry audience, such as our age demands.

  PARRYKIN: [Appearing to be considering Ursula thoughtfully] Oh, well then, you have all convinced me. We must let her have her say, I suppose, for p’raps she is more experienced in playing than she looks. What would you have us do, Ursula?

  URSULA: I would... if I may?

  CAREBY: Let us have it, Urse, else we shall have our ears tweaked by Parry’s prating when the house is empty.

  PARRYKIN: Who doesn’t like a pirate? Everyone likes a pirate!

  URSULA: Well then... scene two. A pretty garden with roses all about. The sun is dipping down behind the apple trees casting pale shadows across the lawn.

  THRUCKLE: Oh very poetic, I’m sure.

  MANNERS: Hush!

  URSULA: Butterflies still hop from bush to bush.

  PARRYKIN: We can do that with papers on wires...

  URSULA: Verily is walking in the garden, a letter in her hand... And then... I shall play it. ‘Oh where is my true love, Jack the stable boy? I have received this note to meet him, but I cannot tarry, for any moment my mistress will find me gone. Hark, I hear footsteps!’ And then – Enter the rakish husband!

  MANNERS: Oh, me! [He jumps up]

  URSULA: Say something about the scent of the garden, or the prettiness of the scene, for you are a foppish sort of man, I think.

  PARRYKIN: I saw him as very handsome, and very brave.

  URSULA: I think it will be merrier this way.

  MANNERS: Ah, the fragrant scents of late summer! Soon the apples will be dropping from the trees, but now I shall walk in the garden and take the air!

  URSULA: And then maybe something like, ‘There is music in this breeze, I fancy,’ and then...

  MANNERS: Ah Verily, what do you do here...

  A few weeks later, I stood in the wings. I was fizzing with excitement at the prospect of acting the second play that I had had a hand in, and felt much relieved that this time I would share the blame with Parrykin if the audience did not like it, feeling also that it was better than my attempts as Flamsteed, for I had been studying all my play volumes very hard, and had gone over and over my additions to Parry’s script, re-polishing the lines until I felt sure they were as droll as they could be. My belly was a strange and liquid thing, and I pressed at it, listening to the hubbub of the pit. The babby I carried was now an immobile lump that had risen steadily in the night like a buboe, and though swollen, was mostly concealed beneath Bunty’s artful dressmaking and could mostly be ignored. It chose this moment to turn a sudden somersault inside me.

  ‘Oooh!’ I cried, clutching at my middle. I had now let the cast into my secret, knowing that to delay this would only have served to continue their ill-disguised whispers. None of them had seemed very surprised. Actresses were ever getting with child and ruining their careers.

  ‘What is it?’ said Thruckle, taking her place beside me in costume as the dull wife. She had been padded out to look broader than she was, and had carmine smeared over her nose and cheeks.

  ‘Here,’ I cried, grabbing her hand and pressing it to the swell of my belly. ‘I think I felt it move! A fluttering sensation, like the brushing of a bird’s wing!’

  ‘Aye,’ she said, pulling her hand away. ‘I am sorry, Ursula, but now it has quickened ’tis unlikely to come away without a struggle.’

  ‘It does not signify,’ I said, ‘For I am resolved to give it up as soon as it is born.’

  ‘Well, you may be cheered that those which are set out to wet-nurse are mostly carried off inside a year, and ’tis a blessing in faith, when a woman has her career to think of and must shift for herself.’

  ‘Aye,’ I said again, but quietly, as I realized that though I made secret plans to find the child a rich barren woman, who would adopt the child, and raise it as her own, I had begun to think of the babby as something much more than an encumbrance. I found that I did not know when the change in me had occurred, but there had been a sort of gradual melting, and as the child grew within me, and thumped its heart along with mine, I began to soften to it and think of it as mine. I did not have time to reflect further on it then, for the musicians were reaching their crescendo which was our cue for the opening ballet. I made myself ready.

  Was it my imagination that the scenes that I had written earned the loudest guffaws of the whole play? As the epilogue was spoken and the applause rang out,
we took our usual bows, all joined in a row, and then the audience got to their feet and a solitary cry of ‘Author!’ was heard. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Parrykin breaking from the wings in a fluster, and stepping quickly before us, he took his wig off with his hat as he swept his bow, which made the audience whistle more, some of them thinking it was by design or part of the playing.

  ‘Well I never,’ said he as we trooped off the stage to rub our faces with grease. ‘To think I’d have a reaction like that... ’tis very pleasing, very pleasing indeed.’

  ‘Mayhap you should have Ursula help with all your sceneing,’ said Manners, tearing at the buttons of his waistcoat at high speed.

  ‘Help me? Well...’ said Parrykin, taking off his wig and rubbing at the waxy strands of hair underneath. ‘I’m not sure that’s why they like it.’

  ‘I am,’ said Manners, sending his breeches flying through the air. ‘She’s a wit and a poet and no mistake, Parrykin, or hadn’t you noticed? Which is lucky, for in truth she’s a middling actress at best.’ He avoided my pinching fingers. ‘There’s a sweetheart pie,’ he said, kissing my cheek. ‘Get her to help you, Parry, if you want to take your bows like that every night, which I know that you do for you’re a good deal vainer than me, and no mistake.’

  XIV

  CONSTERNATION

  In which I begin to work at scripting in earnest

  URSULA’S NOTES on

  FOR THE LOVE OF A DEMNED GOOD WHORE

  by CLIFFORD MONTGOMERY CLYFFE

  A.K.A. RODERICK PARRYKIN

  Title – suggest we consider a few more options. Good Woman, perhaps, rather than Whore? For there is nothing in the script to suggest she is getting paid for her labours.

  Millicent – I enjoyed her badinage with Master Tomfoolery, but I question whether he has to have all the best lines. Suggest she may come across as a real woman if she has a tiny bit of wit about her, for all the ladies I know do.